Wind Pipes

Sarah Kenchington's Wind Pipes

eagleowl rehearsals

Brian Irvine rehearsals

Wind Pipes, detail

In 2013, Sarah Kenchington created Wind Pipes for the Edinburgh Art Festival. Her most ambitious construction to date, it was created from over 100 decommissioned organ pipes, assembled from salvage yards and eBay. Kenchington’s instruments depend for their creation and playing on significant physical labour, and Wind Pipes is no exception, requiring at least 6 willing bodies to man the bellows.

The work was accompanied by a programme of commissions, with the instrument offering a unique site for artistic dialogue and experimentation during the festival. The composers taking part included Daniel Padden, Colin Broom, Muris, Brian Irvine and eagleowl and friends.

Wind Pipes is now touring. If you would like to talk to us about hosting the instrument, contact Emmie McKay on emmie@suzyglass.co.uk.

Sarah Kenchington builds her mechanical instruments from discarded materials. Bicycle spokes, typewriters, the inner tubes of tractor tyres are combined to create unique musical machines which emit a discordant array of moans, squeaks and chimes. Kenchington’s work offers a contemporary manifestation of a long history of the artist giving birth to machines (from Leonardo da Vinci, through to Heath Robinson, Tinguely and Michael Landy), yet Kenchington’s machines are anything but automata, remaining fundamentally dependent on an interaction with the human to come to life. Kenchington relishes the unpredictable nature of her instruments, a quality which means that despite being author of both instrument and the music it emits, she is never entirely in control of what happens. Her performances evolve in conversation with or in response to the machine, a process which for Kenchington is akin to playing an improvised duet with another musician.

Commissioned by Edinburgh Art Festival and produced by Suzy Glass.
With support from PRSF, Creative Scotland and Hope Scott.